In a recent Reader's Digest article, an Oxford University professor, philosopher, and bioethicist reports that he believes parents have a "moral obligation" to genetically engineer their babies to make sure that they become better people.

Furthermore, Savulescu argued that parents should be given the option to screen out potential personality flaws in their children in order to make them less likely to "harm themselves and others," and that screening embryos and manipulating specific genes could result in a smarter, wiser, less aggressive and less violent society, Richard Alleyne of the Telegraph added.

Alleyne said Savulescu believes that advances in science make it easier and more likely to influence an unborn child's personality, altering DNA and genetic markers in order to enhance positive traits and eliminate negative ones.

"Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting? So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice," he wrote, according to the Telegraph.

"To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality," Savulescu added. "If we have the power to intervene in the nature of our offspring - rather than consigning them to the natural lottery - then we should."

According to the Huffington Post, the Oxford professor is "no stranger to controversial comments," recently arguing in a New York Times editorial that the Olympics should permit performance enhancing drug use.

Likewise, on his personal blog, he discusses issues such as deciding whether or not to abort a fetus based on an American Idol-style voting system and whether or not low sex drive is linked to brain disorders.

Reader Comments

...how about we genetically engineer a worldwide conscious to look after all the abandoned, unwanted, neglected, abused Children that are already here - before we start bringing any further babies into an unbalanced society????

Here is a eugenicist, plain and simple, standing up and pretty much publicly claiming he is one.

I am sure this will be followed by a campaign to "make the world safe for eugenics."

The fact that there is little, if any, evidence that genetics have any real causal connection to "personality flaws" seems to escape the notice of this "doctor" and Readers Digest (infamous for publishing fantasy as fact).

And beyond that, the "personality flaw" of the past could become the "saving grace" of the future. Who knows what it will take for humans to survive through the next 10, 20 ,or 50 years?

One advertising firm once enjoyed reminding us that "it isn't nice to fool Mother Nature." I have a tendency to agree with that sentiment, now apparently hopelessly old fashioned!

I do not trust this guy, Savulescu, one iota. He is the one who heavily supported his two former associates and their "scientific paper", entitled "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?"
They argued that "parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are "morally irrelevant" and ending their lives is no different to abortion."
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And now, he claims "that "screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence" in fetuses would improve the quality of society".
Can I ask HOW can they do it? Excuse my ignorance, but I haven't heard about discoveries of gene mutations responsible for those flaws as of yet. So, what he is REALLY up to?

My attitude towards further suspicious revelations of Prof. Savulescu is not taken out of thin air. While defending his former co-workers (as mentioned above), he wrote on "Journal of Medical Ethics" blog the following (emphasis added):

"Many people will and have disagreed with these arguments. However, THE GOAL of the Journal of Medical Ethics IS NOT TO PRESENT THE TRUTH or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises."